Agency: Truckers Can Drive Longer Hours

Published 8:00 pm, Wednesday, April 23, 2003

Associated Press Writer

The government says a new requirement that truck drivers rest two more hours between shifts will save as many as 75 lives annually by reducing fatigue-related accidents.

Safety groups and the truckers' union dispute that. They say the benefits from that change will be offset by another: Allowing the drivers to spend up to 11 straight hours behind the wheel, one more than now permitted.

"An extra hour of driving time will just add to driver fatigue," said Rob Black, spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The changes, announced Thursday by Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, are the first for truck drivers since 1939. Mineta said they could lower the cost of moving freight by 1 percent and mean a yearly economic benefit of almost $100 billion in increased productivity.

Drivers will have to rest at least 10 hours between shifts, two hours more than now, while also getting the chance to stay on the road an hour longer. The changes take effect Jan. 4.

David McCorkle of McCorkle Truck Line in Oklahoma, the former head of the American Trucking Associations, said the trucking industry supports the changes.

"We can live with this one," he said.

Federal officials decided not to require breaks during driving shifts, which the trucking association said are unnecessary. The group conducted a survey three years ago and found that truck drivers automatically take breaks because they have to eat and use the bathroom, said David Osiecki, the association's vice president for safety and operations.

"Rest breaks are built into a driver's day," Osiecki said.

The National Sleep Foundation objected to provisions that allow drivers to be assigned nondriving duties, such as loading and unloading trucks, after they have driven for 11 hours.

"Eleven hours of driving time might be fine, but three hours of nondriving duties is getting away from what the established research says is safe," said Darrel Drobnich, a foundation spokesman.

The new rule does not require trucks to have on-board recorders, which keep track of wheel movement. Drobnich called that "ludicrous" because the devices, which he said cost about $300, would allow the government to better enforce driving regulations.

Annette Sandberg, acting administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said there is a problem enforcing the hours-of-service rules. But, she said, the recorders are not tamperproof and could infringe on a driver's privacy. Law enforcement officers also cannot check the information on the devices, she said.

The agency plans to research new technologies that could be used to record a truck's movement.

The number of people who died in large truck accidents declined 3.5 percent last year, from 5,082 in 2001 to 4,902 in 2002, according to preliminary government estimates released Wednesday.